Great Park's uncertainty fosters restlessness

Orange County Great Park designer Ken Smith stands in the park's Palm Court earlier this year. JEFF ANTENORE, FOR THE REGISTER

Great-er spending

What's been spent? $273 million, about $48 million of which was spent on the park's early design.

What's left? $21.5 million as of June 30.

Source: Great Park Corp., Orange County Register.

IRVINE – The strategy couldn't have been any clearer in 2007: “Position the Great Park as a national treasure, the first great metropolitan park to be built in the 21st century,” read a progress report from early that year.

The city had about 1,300 acres of land; $200 million in developer money; an orange, helium balloon ride donated by the developer; the support of 58 percent of county voters who wanted a park instead of a new airport; and a master plan that included a 2-mile-long canyon, museums, a lake, an amphitheater and more.

Five years later, the park spans just 230 acres and about $21.5 million remained available to spend as of the end of June. The park's most recognizable attraction remains the balloon.

A new vision from the developer of homes north of the park has taken hold as people have grown restless for results. Emile Haddad, CEO of developer FivePoint Communities, likens it to hitting a restart button.

By mid-November, Haddad said he hopes to have City Council approval to spend $174 million to build 688 acres of their parkland into a destination for athletes, golfers, walkers and wildlife in exchange for being allowed to build 4,606 homes east of the park. (He is already building 4,894 homes north of it.)

Haddad said the plan he has so far negotiated with the city doesn't abandon the desire that it be extraordinary. His idea of a metropolitan park includes elements to appeal to a variety of people – “something that has life in it,” he said, adding that features remain that could be added that haven't been designed or planned. Hundreds of acres of park would remain open to development.

The designer of the original vision, though, said the Great Park's potential evolution was disappointing.

“Correctly speaking, The Great Park should probably be renamed something along the lines of The Golf Park. From my perspective, it has surely forfeited any claim to greatness,” said Ken Smith, the New York-based landscape architect whose winning design led to the park's master plan and who worked on its design through 2011.

“The great potential of the Orange County Great Park is so diminished and diluted in the proposal that it bears almost nothing of the potential of the Master Plan for the park,” Smith said.

“It seems that the public is being asked to give away their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something transformational and positive for this part of Orange County,” he said.

The city's cash on hand for the park is diminishing, though, and some $1.4 billion it hoped to use from future property taxes was lost with its redevelopment agency. A lawsuit against the state is pending.

The Great Park will open its 30-acre south lawn area Saturday with soccer fields, basketball courts and a reflecting pond, the last piece of construction on what it calls the western sector that began in 2009.

Great Park CEO Mike Ellzey said he has fielded numerous requests over the years from private interests wanting to invest at the Great Park by locating their ice rink, their museum, their attractions there, but he has always had to preface those conversations with a warning that things might change based on the city's discussions with FivePoint.

“There's always been a sense of uncertainty of how it would ultimately come together,” he said. “I think there's nothing but good news in what has occurred.”

Depending on who you talk to, what happened, or rather, what didn't happen, between 2007 and today could be blamed on the recession, on elected leaders, on election years, on the home developer, on the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers (the developer's lender), on the governor getting rid of redevelopment agencies, or spending money on public events to build park goodwill.

The blame usually leveled during council meetings when the topic of the Great Park crops up was replaced last week with a different feeling – restlessness. Members of the overflow crowd largely appeared to want the same thing based on their comments and applause lines: a park, built as soon as possible. And here was an offer to build it.

FivePoint's plan held special appeal to youth sports advocates, parents and coaches with its 24 tennis courts, 12 ball fields, 11 sand volleyball courts, 10 other courts and more, taking up about 13 percent of the park's total acreage.

The City Council voted unanimously to consider Haddad's plan, taking it out of the hands of a subcommittee and sending it to staff to negotiate a deal.

Beth Krom, a councilwoman since 2000 who has fiercely defended the city's spending on the Great Park, said at the meeting that she thought FivePoint's plan was compelling, “but the vision for the Great Park was for a great metropolitan park. … I want to make sure we do it right.”

Marion Bergeson, past chairwoman of the Great Park Foundation and a longtime county leader, is confident the Great Park will be a park. She's just not sure what kind of park based on the details, or lack thereof, so far.

“It will morph into something we may not even recognize,” she said, noting that political inclinations could shift with the next election and with it change the park's look yet again.

Related Links

Orange County Great Park designer Ken Smith stands in the park's Palm Court earlier this year. JEFF ANTENORE, FOR THE REGISTER
Emile Haddad is the president and CEO of Five Point Communities. His company has offered to build 688 acres of the Great Park for around $174 million. SAM GANGWER, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

1 of

User Agreement

Keep it civil and stay on topic. No profanity, vulgarity, racial
slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about
tragedies will be blocked. By posting your comment, you agree to
allow Orange County Register Communications, Inc. the right to
republish your name and comment in additional Register publications
without any notification or payment.